


Fic Prompt Fill: - The Return Home

by koalathebear



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 23:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5516720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Prompt from anon on tumblr:</b> Rey needs to get her few belongings from Jakku and Poe goes with her (Finn too maybe? or he really can't stand to go back there bcos why … whichever)</p><p>*</p><p>Just a little scribble in response to the prompt that incorporates some information from the novelisation. I asked people for prompts at this <a href="http://koalathebear.tumblr.com/post/135824147166/star-wars-the-force-awakens-fic-prompts">post</a>.  Set some time after Star Wars: The Force Awakens.</p><p>Updated after more information was gleaned from the Visual Dictionary and Rey's Survival Guide.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fic Prompt Fill: - The Return Home

"What's the worst he could say?" Finn asked. "No? I think you should just ask him."

Rey looked doubtful as she sat in the medical centre of D'Qar. Although still confined to the medical centre, Finn was finally sitting up. When not in training with Luke Skywalker to learn to control her powers or not in flight training with Poe Dameron, she was at the medical centre keeping Finn company. More often than not, Poe would join them as well.

The doors slid open and the tall pilot walked through, BB-8 trailing behind him expectantly. "Hey – I heard you were sitting up today!" Poe exclaimed, please to see the improvement in his friend's condition. BB-8 also gave a chirrup of pleasure.

"Still feel as weak as a baby but the doctor says I'll make a full recovery," Finn replied with a broad grin.

"It will take time - not every day you get cut down by a lightsabre," Poe remarked soberly, dropping down into the spare seat beside Rey. "Good work today," he complimented the young woman. Although already a talented pilot, she'd never been formally trained and she certainly had no awareness or understanding of Resistance procedures and techniques and he had taken it upon himself to train her.

She was a quick study and eager to learn. Teaching her was actually a pleasure although Poe didn't think too deeply about the reasons he enjoyed the lessons.

"Jessika's impressed with you," Poe told her and grinned when Rey went pink with pleasure. 

"Really? Do you think Nien Nunb will ever let me fly with him?"

Poe laughed. "I wouldn't rush into things …Give him time. Sullustans take a lot longer to warm to strangers than humans do." Rey nodded and leaned back in her chair.

"So will Finn get lessons when he's well enough?" she asked.

Poe grinned at Finn. "Do you want to learn how to be a pilot?" he asked.

Finn grimaced. "I think I should stick with my strengths – hand to hand combat and shooting things. I'll leave the flying to others."

"Well if you change your mind, I know a pretty good teacher," Rey teased him with a grin as Poe inclined his head in gracious acknowledgment of the compliment.

"So Rey has a favour to ask …" Finn started to speak as Rey stiffened and her gaze snapped back to Finn's face warningly.

"No don't – "

"What favour?" Poe asked immediately, dark eyes filled with curiosity. "Go on – you can ask me anything," he urged her.

"You're conducting scouting missions for the General," Finn spoke up on Rey's behalf. 

"Can I come, too – and can we go back to Jakku so that I can pick up my things …" Rey blurted out rapidly.

Poe's eyes widened. "You want to go back to Jakku … isn't that dangerous for you given what's happened between you and Unkar Plutt?" Poe asked her. First there was the theft of the Falcon, then there was the rather significant matter of Chewbacca ripping one of the junk boss's arms off during the run-in on Takodana.

"I don't have much stuff … never have," Rey confided. "But there are some things there that are precious to me … " She didn't have to finish her sentence. She'd left Jakku with only the clothes that she had been wearing.

Poe grimaced. "The General wouldn't like it and neither would her brother …"

Finn and Rey exchanged swift glances. "You wouldn't have to tell them," Finn pointed out and Rey looked at Poe very hopefully.

"I know it sounds silly but – "

"No, it's not silly," Poe assured her gently. "I understand."

"We'd be in and out … "

Poe smiled. "You don't have to convince me. I'm not sure I can say no to either of you," he said with a twisted smile. The three of them smiled as BB-8 started rocking and twirling with excitement.

*

"There it is," she told him, pointing at the toppled and half-destroyed AT-AT walker lying in the sand in the middle of the Goazon Badlands like a broken skeleton of a mythical beast. There wasn't much vegetation here in the badlands, just a few spinebarrels struggling to eke out an existence in the rare patches of shade. Occasionally you'd find a nightbloomer if any dirt was piled up in cracks in the rocks. Mostly it was just broken land, low hills, shelves of bare stone that sloped down and sand ... everywhere he looked, there was sand ...

A muscle moved in Poe's jaw as he landed the battered shuttle in the hot sand and studied the half-destroyed Imperial weapon. It hurt a little to think that this ancient, rotting, rusting example of now useless military might had served as a home to the young woman next to him. 

"Well – come in," she invited him in awkwardly and after a brief moment's hesitation, he followed her. Instead of a front door, she used the auxiliary hatch in the underside of the walker. Troopers would have only used it in any emergency and would have entered through the side hatch, but Poe could see that that had been welded shut a long time ago.

"The legs gave me a place to park my speeder but this is where I spent most of my time - in the belly of the beast," she told him with a small smile. They had passed a speeder bike garage and an upper trooper deck on the way in, but he could see that she had spent most of her time in the lower troop deck. Poe looked around the room silently, taking everything in. This was Rey's history … her home. He looked at the bits and pieces of homemade décor that decorated isolated alcoves and corners. Before him was a handmade doll that had been made from the orange flight suit of a pilot of the Rebellion. It hurt to think of that doll being made by a ten year old Rey ... alone and desperate for comfort. Beside it lay a cluster of dried flowers, the colours faded but still pretty. 

"What kind are they?" he asked her.

Spinebarrel blooms and nightblossoms ... there's beauty everywhere if you look hard enough - even on Jakku," she told him earnestly.

Poe looked at her steadily. "Absolutely," he agreed, and he wasn't talking about the desert flowers.

Rey looked at the pillow on the pile of bedding that had cost her a day's work. She knew that the dwelling that had served as a home wasn't much to look at and she felt a stab of shame. She had known before she had come that her family had not returned. There was no sign that anyone had come here since her departure and yet she had allowed herself to hope for a sign that someone had come back for her.

Poe was very silent, imagining the small child living here alone, softening the drabness of her surroundings with the small examples of defiant individuality … the doll, the flowers.

"This is my workbench," she told him. "Mostly I spent my time refurbishing gear here because it usually cost too much to do the repairs at Unkar's washing table in Niima." He looked at the old Y-wing computer display which Rey had used to study schematics of old rebel and Imperial starships and run flight simulations, where she had practised languages and droid speak so that she could talk to people in Niima. He already knew that she had scavenged in exchange for food. Unkar Plutt had traded salvaged gear in exchange for rations - no credits, no barter except for food. Survival rations that his goons had taken out of the Graveyard. In that way, he had kept his 'people' to a hand to mouth existence, completely beholden to him for their ongoing existence - Rey included.

Poe walked over to and picked up an old, badly damaged Rebellion helmet, his eyes very distant and thoughtful as he stared at the helmet. It had belonged to Captain Dosmit Ræh of the Tierfon Yellow Aces. The name was vaguely familiar to Poe, the helmet's original owner would be long dead, her body nothing but dust on Jakku - or elsewhere

Still holding the helmet, he stared wordlessly at the interior wall of semi-malleable material that was covered with scratch marks that numbered in the thousands.

"That's how many days you were here … alone?" he asked her finally, deliberately not looking at her.

"Yes. There was no one. This is Jakku. Nobody has friends here. Just fellow survivors." She saw the expression in his dark eyes. "Don’t you dare pity me," she told him fiercely.

He shook his head emphatically. "I'm not pitying you," he retorted and put the helmet down on the bench again and crossed the room to her side. His face was very serious, his eyes very tender. 

"I'm just imagining you living here by yourself … no one to look after you."

"I was brought here … and left … I was supposed to wait" she whispered unexpectedly. "I just can't _remember_ …" She put her hand to her head. "When I try to remember, it hurts."

Could the power of the Force wipe a human mind of its memories, Poe wondered. He had seen many things in his life but nothing to explain the fragmented recollection of the young woman in front of him.

"Don't push it … there's time enough for that …" he told her gently. "Come on, let's have something to eat before we go, you must be starving."

She pulled battered pans and plates from a shelf and the two of them worked side by side wordlessly to prepare food that they had brought with them on their journey. Rey ate much better these days than she ever had before and even the Resistance's ready to eat meals were far more tasty and filling than the food she had eaten in her days of scavenging on Jakku.

Their fingers brushed as they prepared dinner, tearing the top of the polybag and pouring the contents into various pans and platters. He already knew what she had eaten when she had been alone on Jakku for she had told him. Survival rations - the only variety being whether they were Imperial rations or New Republic rations. "Both were pretty much the same ... the New Republic rations taste a bit better but the Imperial stuff is less likely to be stale after all these years."

She led him outside and the two of them sat on the ground facing the desert as they ate in companionable silence. They stared at the flat dark blue of the evening sky and again, Poe marvelled at the loneliness Rey must have experienced in all her days of solitude on Jakku. 

"The helmet is from one of my first scavengings at the Graveyard. I used to make up stories about who Captain Dosmit Ræh of the Tierfon Yellow Aces was ... trying to guess what planet she might have come from."

"And the doll?" Poe's voice was very gentle.

"I found a flight uniform in a cargo container." Rey smiled wryly. "I'd put put on the helmet and explore the AT-AT and outside with the doll ...Don't laugh, but I'd pretend we were finding lost rebels to get them back to their ships."

Poe wasn't laughing. His eyes were very serious. Rey felt obliged to introduce him to her former home. Raising an arm, she gestured. “Niima Outpost is that way. That way is Kelvin Ridge – which is really dangerous. Then there are the Sinking Fields up north – even more dangerous. You can drown in the sand there. I saved BB-8 from a marauding Teedo just a short way from here," she told him. "What?' she asked when she realised that Poe was just sitting there, staring at her with inexplicable intensity. "What are you staring at?"

"You," he told her simply and leaned forward and brushed his lips across hers lightly. Her breath caught as she closed her eyes momentarily and leaned in for the kiss, her lips parting beneath his as his tongue explored her mouth lovingly, tasting her. He cupped her face in his hands and deepened the kiss, teaching her how to respond, how to kiss him properly … He kissed her until they were both shaking uncontrollably.

Finally he drew back and his hand brushed the hair from her cheek. 

"Why did you do that?" she demanded warily.

"I wanted to. I hope you did, too."

Colour crept into her cheeks. "Yes."

The air grew cool as the evening descended and Rey shivered slightly. 

Poe pulled off his jacket and put it around her narrow shoulders. "Let's go inside," he suggested and she nodded. "We should pack up your things and go," he suggested.

Silently he helped her gather her pitiably small collection of belongings and place them in her pack. 

"Must we leave right away?" she asked him suddenly and Poe drew her narrow frame against him and held her in his arms.

"If Unkar Plutt finds out you're back, there could be trouble …"

"I just want to stay a little bit longer … I remember that … someone was supposed to come back for me and I was supposed to wait. So I waited …"

All those years she had waited but no one had come for her. There was a hammock hung up but they grabbed blankets from the ship and made themselves a makeshift bed on the floor in the corner of the room and he told her of his childhood on Yavin 4, of what little he remembered of his own mother. She told him of her dreams ... an island in the middle of a vast ocean - the same island where she had found Luke Skywalker. Her words trailed off as Poe's hands and lips brushed lightly over her skin.

"Don't stop," she whispered.

"You've not done this before."

"So show me," she invited him, pulling him down against her body.

*

In the morning, they awoke slowly, grinning foolishly and self-consciously at one another. Morning ablutions were silent and swift and Poe waited as Rey wrote a message on the wall.

They made their way back to the shuttle and Rey slid into the co-pilot's seat beside Poe in the cockpit. As the shuttle rose into the air, Poe glanced over at Rey who was studying the barren desert with an unreadable expression in her eyes.

"Are you all right?" he asked her gently and she nodded slowly, a faint smile on her lips.

"I'm not alone anymore."

He smiled in response, leaning towards her and his kiss was a promise.

****

end


End file.
